Premiere Mortgage Services Inc. - Dana Bain

NMLS Consumer Access website helps protect mortgage shoppers

NMLS Consumer Access website helps protect mortgage shoppers.

The database of companies and individuals will tell consumers whether the person they're working with has had his or her license suspended or revoked in another state, for example.

Mortgage shoppers will have a new tool that will go a long way toward protecting them from being ripped off by unscrupulous loan originators when they gain admission this month to a growing nationwide database of companies and individuals who offer home loans.

By clicking onto NMLS (Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System) Consumer Access, would-be borrowers will have entry to a single source of information, updated nightly, that will tell them whether the loan officer or broker with whom they are working is licensed, the company he or she is licensed with, the branch where the originator works and his or her employment history going back 10 years.

The fully searchable website also will list any aliases or names other than the name the individual has used since age 18, an indication of whether that person is engaged in other sidelines and his or her license status in other jurisdictions.

Borrowers in California, for example, will learn whether the person they're speaking with about perhaps the largest financial transaction of their lives has ever had his or her license suspended or revoked in Nevada, Arizona or another state where that person has worked in the past.